Max Collins: The Million-Dollar Wound

Our bus’s NCO, prior to this an agreeable sort, turned suddenly into that Nazi I’d been looking for; he stood at the front of the bus and all but screamed: “All right, you people, off the goddamned bus!”

The kids rushed off, and Barney and I got swept up with them. We lined up with men from the other buses and counted off into groups of sixty. A truck rumbled by, carrying in its open back a work party of seasoned-looking recruits. They laughed at us.

“You’ll be sor -eeeee,” one called, the truck leaving us behind in the dust.

A corporal in a campaign hat came walking toward us with a tight-lipped, somehow hungry smile. He was about five-ten and probably weighed 160 pounds; smaller than me by two inches and twenty-five pounds. But he was a muscular s.o.b., with massive arms and chest and a stomach flatter than day-old beer. His cold green eyes squinted and his hawk nose jutted and he clearly hated us, and just as clearly enjoyed doing so.

“All right, shitbirds, get in line,” he shouted, from the gut, and the heart. He began walking up and down, like Napoleon inspecting his troops, giving us the once-over twice. “So you wanna make Marines, huh?” He sneered more to himself than at us, shaking his head. “What sad sorry sacks of shit. Where the fuck’d they dig you up?”

The kids were stunned by this; me, I smiled a little. I preferred this to the fatherly approach of the first sergeant back at the train station. This was bullshit, too, but at least it was amusing.

Only the corporal wasn’t amused. He came over and looked me right in the face; his breath was hotter than the sun and bad.

“What in the fuck are you doing here?”

I knew enough not to say anything.

“Don’t you know we don’t take grandpas in the Marines?”

Then he noticed Barney.

“What did they do, empty out the goddamn old folks home?” He shook his head, walked back and forth in front of us. “Grandma and grandpa. And I’m expected to make Marines out of this shit.”

Out of the corner of one eye I could see Barney starting to take this wrong; we were about half a second from Barney swinging on the guy, and starting his glorious patriotic service to his country in the guard house. I nudged him with my foot and his face went expressionless.

The corporal exploded but not, thankfully, at Barney in particular. At all of us in general: “Patoon halt, teehut. Right hace. Forwart huah. Double time, huah.”

We didn’t know what the hell that meant, but we did it. The s.o.b. ran us up and down the streets forever, and then a while longer, and then we were in front of the wooden hut that would be home, for a while. My guts were burning, my breath a slow pathetic pant; the former lightweight/welterweight champ didn’t seem any better off. The corporal, who’d set and kept the pace, wasn’t breathing hard, fuck him.

“Patoon halt, right hace!” He put his hands on his hips and rocked on his heels as he smiled tightly, oozing contempt. “You people are stupid. Now we know who you are. I am Corporal McRae. I am your drill instructor. This is Platoon Seven-fourteen. If any of you idiots think you don’t need to follow my orders, just step right out here and I’ll beat your ass right now.” He began walking back and forth again. “You people are shitbirds. You are not Marines. You may not have what it takes to be Marines.”

No one was moving; they were barely breathing. I did not hate this man before us. I did not even resent him. But I was scared of the fucker.

Before long we were in a chow line, trays flung into our hands, food flung from all directions onto the tray. One course flopped right on top of another, and if you didn’t position your tray right as you passed, the food ended up on the floor or you or some goddamn where that wasn’t the tray. The sweating cooks had done a real number on whatever this had been before it got to us.

“Hell of way to serve a meal,” Barney said, under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear. “Good thing I don’t keep kosher.”

We didn’t see him but, like God, Corporal McRae was everywhere, because he was right on top of Barney, saying, “Real wise guy, aren’t you? Think you’re in the fucking Waldorf?” Then something akin to thought seemed to pass across the corporal’s face. “I’ve seen you before, shitbird. What is your name?”

Barney smiled a little; his smugness made me wince.

“Barney Ross,” he said.

The corporal’s face lit up like Christmas. “Whaddya know,” he said, so everybody in the mess hall could hear. “Grandma here’s a celebrity.” Then his face went dark again. “Well, you’re no fuckin’ champ here, Ross. You’re just another goddamn shitbird. You get no special favors and no special treatment.”

“I didn’t ask for-”

“We know you goddamn celebrities. You expect the red goddamn carpet. Well, you’re gonna toe the mark, buddy. In fact, I think we’ll give you a few extra things to do just so you’re sure how you fit in here.”

He strode off.

Barney stood there with the tray of food in his hands, steaming (both Barney and the food); a kid from Chicago standing nearby said, “Why don’t you sock the bum, Barney?”

“Yeah, Barney,” I said. “Sock him. Get us all off to a swell start.”

He grinned crookedly at me and then we found our way to a table, joining some recruits who seemed seasoned, hoping to get some encouraging words about how the first day is toughest.

The main course on our trays was, apparently, beans and wieners, and I was about to apply some mustard to a wiener when one of the old-timers (who was probably twenty) said, “When you’re through with the baby shit, pass it my way.”

I swallowed and passed him the mustard without using it myself; I was more squeamish then than I am now. I’ve since asked somebody to pass me the baby shit on many an occasion.

Then, after lunch, like guys going to the chair, we had our heads shaved. To the skin. Now I knew how Zangara felt. You know-the guy that shot Mayor Cermak.

Anyway, most of the 714 seemed to be from Chicago, though Barney and I never met any of ’em before; but we did have a couple of Southern boys. That first night, Corporal McRae assembled us in our barracks and said, “All right now-any of you idiots who got straight razors or switchblades, throw ’em on the bunk next to me. I won’t have you shitbirds cutting each other up. I draw the blood around here, people.”

A kid from the South Side named D’Angelo-who told us he used to work for Capone crony Nicky Dean at the Colony Club on Rush Street-tossed a switchblade on the bunk. Two straight razors followed, and then some brass knuckles thudded on the thin horsehair mattress.

“You can’t cut anybody with that, idiot,” the Corporal said, and tossed the knucks back at the kid.

The Southern boys had apparently not seen any Chicago silverware before; their eyes were round as Stepin Fetchit’s, although their complexions were considerably lighter.

Even for us Chicagoans, the chill San Diego morning came as a shock. That was Dago: freezing your ass off at dawn, and by noon you were roasting. The days were long and hard, brutally hard: calisthenics, close-order drill, marching, long hikes over rough terrain, bayonet training, judo, breakneck runs over obstacle courses, gas-mask drills, infantry training under combat conditions with live ammo whizzing overhead. McRae had his own special brand of sadism, unique to him among the Dago DIs: he’d double-time us to an area near the beach at San Diego Bay. There, while the beautiful, indifferent water watched, we’d drill back and forth on the hot, soft sand. My legs ached so, I would cry myself quietly to sleep in my rack on such nights.